BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Dewey Roscoe Jones

Dewey Roscoe Jones was born on September 2, 1899 in Asheville, North Carolina. His family moved to Chicago when Jones was a teenager. He attended Wendell Phillips High School. After graduation, Jones served in the U.S. Army 369th and 370th infantry regiments in World War I. Following his service, Jones received a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from the University of Michigan in 1922. Jones received a Master’s of Science in Journalism in 1932 from Columbia University.

In the spring of 1923 Jones joined the staff of the Chicago Defender as a reporter. He soon was promoted to City Editor and later Managing Editor. Hundreds of Chicago Defender readers knew him best as Dewey R., manager of the poetry column “Lights and Shadows.”

Jones married Faith Jefferson of Oak Park, Illinois on September 30, 1929. Faith Jefferson Jones became a well-known social worker in Chicago. She worked as District Supervisor of the Cook County Bureau of Public Welfare, and then the Assistant Director of the Chicago Relief Administration. The couple had one son, Dewey Roscoe Jones, Jr. in 1936.

Dewey Jones left the Chicago Defender in 1932 to work as the Associate Acting Advisor on Negro Affairs in the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works in the U.S. Department of the Interior under Harold L. Ickes. While in Washington D.C. he also served as an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his “Black Cabinet,” a group of men and women who provided the President and his staff with policy advice on African American issues.

He returned to Chicago in 1938 to serve as the Assistant Director of Hull-House, Jane Addams’s sprawling, progressive settlement just southwest of the city’s Loop. On April 18, 1938 Jones was granted a Julius Rosenwald fellowship for study at Hull-House to determine the social and economic needs of the lowest income group in the area, and to recommend a remedial program. Jones was in the middle of writing his report when he died suddenly at Provident Hospital on April 3, 1939 at the age of 39. His death was caused by complications from gallstones.

SCOPE AND CONTENT

Series 1: Biographical, 1918-2013, undated

Series 1 contains biographical materials related to the life of Dewey Roscoe Jones. These materials document his time as an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan and as a journalism graduate student at Columbia University, correspondence to his family and friends, and newspaper articles about Dewey Jones. Of special interest are writings and manuscripts by Dewey Jones, including a book titled Love Along the Color Line. The book was written by Dewey Jones but went unpublished until 2013 when his son, Dewey Jones, Jr. wrote the forward and had it published. The series is organized chronologically.

Series 2 is the largest series in the collection. It contains materials related to Dewey Roscoe Jones’s wife, Faith Jefferson Jones Killings. The series includes information on her education at Oak Park High School, Crane Junior College, New York University (B.A. in Education), and the University of Chicago (M.A. in Social Service Administration).

Faith Jefferson Jones Killings’s career in social service work, which began in 1933, is also well documented. She rose to the position of Assistant Divisional Director in the Cook County Department of Public Aid where she was instrumental in establishing the Blind Assistance Program. In 1945, Faith Jefferson Jones Killings left Chicago to become dean of women at Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia. She returned to Chicago in 1948 because her mother was ill. She was an executive director of Parkway Community House, a medical social worker and assistant to the director of the Social Service Department at Presbyterian-St. Luke Hospital.

This series also includes information on the Jefferson family and the numerous civic organizations which Faith Jefferson Jones Killings belonged. Among them are the State of Illinois Scholarship Commission, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Chicago Urban League, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Metropolitan YWCA of Chicago, and the Chicago Pharmacist Association. She was married to Marco M. Killings, a prominent local pharmacist, from August 6, 1951 to 1966.

The series consists of newspaper clippings, school materials, a family Bible [oversize box 5], event programs, correspondence, writings by Faith Jefferson Jones, and research materials. It is organized chronologically with undated materials listed alphabetically at the end of the series.

Series 3: Chicago Defender, 1911-1955, undated

Series 3 documents Dewey Jones’s career in journalism as a writer and editor at the Chicago Defender. It includes correspondence, newspaper clippings, Abbott’s Monthly magazines, and a 50th anniversary printing of the Chicago Defender [oversize box 12]. There are feature articles written by Dewey R. Jones and his columns “Lights in Shadows,” “The Bookshelf,” “What Books Tell Us,” “A Day at the Fair,” “Thoughts in Passing,” and “Pointed Paragraphs.” The series is organized chronologically.

Series 4: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1934-1954, undated

Series 4 documents Dewey Jones’s work as Acting Adviser on Negro Affairs for the United States Department of the Interior. It includes correspondence, press releases, speeches, annual reports, and project statements. The series is organized chronologically.

Series 5: Jane Addams Hull-House, 1931-2013, undated

Series 5 contains materials related to Dewey Jones’s work as the Assistant Director of Hull-House. It consists of correspondence, newspaper and journal clippings, Hull-House bulletins and newsletters, event programs, promotional and fund raising materials. Of special note are west side area interviews done by Dewey Jones in 1938 as research for a study he was writing on the needs of local residents. The series is organized chronologically.

Series 6: Pamphlets and Serials, 1913-1968, undated

Series 6 contains pamphlets and magazines, collected by either Dewey or Faith Jones, mostly related to literature, history and politics. Included in this series is the premier issue of Fire!!: A Quarterly Devoted to the Younger Negro Artists, 1927. It is signed by Langston Hughes to Dewey Jones. These materials are organized alphabetically by publication title.

Series 7: Photographs, 1917-circa 1963, undated

Series 7 consists of over 250 photographs documenting the life and work of Dewey and Faith Jones. The series is organized chronologically with undated photographs listed alphabetically by description at the end.